The Locative Syntax Of Experiencers

The Locative Syntax of Experiencers

A new account of the peculiar syntax of psychological verbs argues that experiencers are grammaticalized as locative phrases. Experiencers—grammatical participants that undergo a certain psychological change or are in such a state—are grammatically special. As objects (John scared Mary; loud music annoys me), experiencers display two peculiar clusters of nonobject properties across different languages: their syntax is often typical of oblique arguments and their semantic scope is typical of subjects. In The Locative Syntax of Experiencers, Idan Landau investigates this puzzling correlation and argues that experiencers are syntactically coded as (mental) locations. Drawing on results from a range of languages and theoretical frameworks, Landau examines the far-reaching repercussions of this simple claim. Landau shows that all experiencer objects are grammaticalized as locative phrases, introduced by a dative/locative preposition. “Bare” experiencer objects are in fact oblique, too, the preposition being null. This preposition accounts for the oblique psych(ological) properties, attested in case alternations, cliticization, resumption, restrictions on passive formation, and so on. As locatives, object experiencers may undergo locative inversion, giving rise to the common phenomenon of quirky experiencers. When covert, this inversion endows object experiencers with wide scope, attested in control, binding, and wh-quantifier interactions. Landau's synthesis thus provides a novel solution to some of the oldest puzzles in the generative study of psychological verbs. The Locative Syntax of Experiencers offers the most comprehensive description of the syntax of psychological verbs to date, documenting their special properties in more than twenty languages. Its basic theoretical claim is readily translatable into alternative frameworks. Existing accounts of psychological verbs either consider very few languages or fail to incorporate other theoretical frameworks; this study takes a broader perspective, informed by findings of four decades of research

A Syntactic Study of Idioms

Since the general tendencies of present-day English focus more on idiomatic usage, it seems to be worth paying attention to the role phraseological units play in a language. In the field of English phraseology, linguists have shown a constant interest in idioms. Undoubtedly, not only are idioms an important part of the language and culture of the society, but they also carry more impact than non-idiomatic expressions because of their close identification with a particular language and culture. It is difficult to speak or write English without using idioms, especially while describing one’s emotional or mental condition. Therefore, it is interesting and worthwhile to to analyse both the language of phraseological units and emotions. In other words, this book focuses not only on idioms, but also on one’s psychological condition. However, its purpose is neither to discuss the issues of idioms and emotions from the psychological point of view, nor provide a conceptual analysis of emotional metaphors. Instead, the book analyses idioms referring to psychological states in English from the perspective of syntax, focusing particularly both on the syntactic structure of this specific set of verbal psych-idioms, and on the constraints on the way they are built. Therefore, the most current studies, performed within the scope of the Phase Theory and the Idioms as Phases Hypothesis are chosen to address certain syntactic problems that idioms pose.

Annual Workshop on Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics